Media consumption 2016
Jan. 24th, 2016 03:12 pm( Here be lists )
SO! 2015 kinda came and went there. Sneaky fucker.
I would have sworn up and down that I'd updated this journal somewhere in there but there's no evidence at all that that is true, so not only is this the 2016 New Year's Resolutions post, it's gonna have to be the 2015 Wrap-Up one as well.
( 2015 Resolutions )
Given my track record with resolutions, I'm going to go ahead and call 2015 a win.
I'm not sure it was a win overall, mind you. I would rate it a solid B at most, I guess. There was a lot of positive change. I think I'm feeling negatively about it because I'm ending on a downer - the house is barely inching towards completion, having my parents up and down (not actually visiting, just here to do chores, essentially) is disruptive, it's winter so I'm feeling very antisocial, I want out of the job, and that's fine because I'm not supposed to drive anywhere, so I'm mostly just stuck in the house every day. It'll get better. By which I mean, I cannot live like this long term, so either things will improve or I will rearrange my life to accommodate the limitations so that things do not suck as much.
( 2016 Resolutions )
I would have sworn up and down that I'd updated this journal somewhere in there but there's no evidence at all that that is true, so not only is this the 2016 New Year's Resolutions post, it's gonna have to be the 2015 Wrap-Up one as well.
( 2015 Resolutions )
Given my track record with resolutions, I'm going to go ahead and call 2015 a win.
I'm not sure it was a win overall, mind you. I would rate it a solid B at most, I guess. There was a lot of positive change. I think I'm feeling negatively about it because I'm ending on a downer - the house is barely inching towards completion, having my parents up and down (not actually visiting, just here to do chores, essentially) is disruptive, it's winter so I'm feeling very antisocial, I want out of the job, and that's fine because I'm not supposed to drive anywhere, so I'm mostly just stuck in the house every day. It'll get better. By which I mean, I cannot live like this long term, so either things will improve or I will rearrange my life to accommodate the limitations so that things do not suck as much.
( 2016 Resolutions )
I was glancing over my reading page before coming here to write this, and I came across the line above from Just Like That by Patrick Rosal in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
poetry.
I'm trying to focus on the dancing in 2015, and as such have been busily composing and re-composing a list of New Year's Resolutions. I have a love/hate relationship with resolutions of any kind, as I am both a person who wants to accomplish lots of things and also a person who has a hard time actually doing any of those things in reality. I've been talking to Helen (I was about to link to her LJ, but seeing as she hasn't posted to it since 2007, that seems a bit redundant) about these vague notions since before the start of the year and she's been (quite rightly) nudging me ever since to actually commit to them. So, here I am at gone 3am on what is now, technically, the first day of February but because I haven't gone to bed yet seems like the last day of January, Officially Noting The Following For The Record:
( Findeth ye here the resolutions. Eth. )
I reserve the right to edit this list at whim.
Tonight I wrote a letter to a dear friend, fixed the problem with the cross-trainer that took five calls to Customer Support to narrow down, then did a full workout on it for the first time in over a week because I've been afraid of breaking it somehow, ATE SALAD FOR TEA (admittedly with a burger, but no bun!), did half an hour's more interpretative dancing and/or stretching to the radio with my hand weights... so basically what I'm saying is that I'm already KILLING IT and you should all bow down to me. Especially because tomorrow's plan involves prep for the two interviews I have next week for that promotion.
poetry. I'm trying to focus on the dancing in 2015, and as such have been busily composing and re-composing a list of New Year's Resolutions. I have a love/hate relationship with resolutions of any kind, as I am both a person who wants to accomplish lots of things and also a person who has a hard time actually doing any of those things in reality. I've been talking to Helen (I was about to link to her LJ, but seeing as she hasn't posted to it since 2007, that seems a bit redundant) about these vague notions since before the start of the year and she's been (quite rightly) nudging me ever since to actually commit to them. So, here I am at gone 3am on what is now, technically, the first day of February but because I haven't gone to bed yet seems like the last day of January, Officially Noting The Following For The Record:
( Findeth ye here the resolutions. Eth. )
I reserve the right to edit this list at whim.
Tonight I wrote a letter to a dear friend, fixed the problem with the cross-trainer that took five calls to Customer Support to narrow down, then did a full workout on it for the first time in over a week because I've been afraid of breaking it somehow, ATE SALAD FOR TEA (admittedly with a burger, but no bun!), did half an hour's more interpretative dancing and/or stretching to the radio with my hand weights... so basically what I'm saying is that I'm already KILLING IT and you should all bow down to me. Especially because tomorrow's plan involves prep for the two interviews I have next week for that promotion.
Welcome, 2015
Jan. 22nd, 2015 02:46 amLife means what you believe it means.
If I'm going to have one of these middle-of-the-night epiphanies and try to capture the thoughts that I usually let slide, try and write accurately about what it is I am trying to convey, I'm probably going to need a few goes before I will actually hit upon a sentence which marries my intention with precision of expression.
You are not wrong to derive the meaning you do from the things that you derive it from. To you, things only have the meaning that you take from them at the moment you are taking it. You have not misunderstood. You are not over- or under-exaggerating the importance of whatever it is that has meaning to you. Life is what it appears to be, to you.
I've still not hit on a succinct way of expressing this.
If I find value in a narrative, or a relationship, or an encounter, or a place, or a hope... that is what life is about. That is what life is for. I don't have to find the same meaning as other people; I don't have to focus on the same things; I don't have to adhere to the 'correct' interpretation of something.
Things have as much or as little meaning as I believe they have. My sources of wisdom can be diverse. The importance I place on them will mutate as my life progresses. The attachment I have to these various ideas, notions, talismans will alter and oscillate.
This is especially true as I am both forgetful and scattergun in my approach to the organisation of my thoughts in my leisure time. I find it easier to marshal my thoughts in a work context, and so, I resort to abandoning them when I am out of that environment. I do not wish to live for the eight hours a day, five days a week that I am an employee, and yet that is what has begun to occur.
Self-censorship in this arena is pointless. A person cannot find spiritual value in something merely because they have decided to do so. True connections will arise spontaneously and without premeditation. They will arise without permission or decision.
I want to accept the value that I place in things. I want to be proud again of that which is meaningful to me and to prioritise it accordingly within the time I have available. I wish to walk in joy and love and to choose to dwell outside the spaces I nurse which contain my pain and sorrow, my anger and my dissatisfaction.
I would like to be guided by the moments of clarity when I feel like I have understood why I am here and what I can do with this opportunity. In order to accomplish this, I must trust what reveals itself as important to me, no matter the source.
If I'm going to have one of these middle-of-the-night epiphanies and try to capture the thoughts that I usually let slide, try and write accurately about what it is I am trying to convey, I'm probably going to need a few goes before I will actually hit upon a sentence which marries my intention with precision of expression.
You are not wrong to derive the meaning you do from the things that you derive it from. To you, things only have the meaning that you take from them at the moment you are taking it. You have not misunderstood. You are not over- or under-exaggerating the importance of whatever it is that has meaning to you. Life is what it appears to be, to you.
I've still not hit on a succinct way of expressing this.
If I find value in a narrative, or a relationship, or an encounter, or a place, or a hope... that is what life is about. That is what life is for. I don't have to find the same meaning as other people; I don't have to focus on the same things; I don't have to adhere to the 'correct' interpretation of something.
Things have as much or as little meaning as I believe they have. My sources of wisdom can be diverse. The importance I place on them will mutate as my life progresses. The attachment I have to these various ideas, notions, talismans will alter and oscillate.
This is especially true as I am both forgetful and scattergun in my approach to the organisation of my thoughts in my leisure time. I find it easier to marshal my thoughts in a work context, and so, I resort to abandoning them when I am out of that environment. I do not wish to live for the eight hours a day, five days a week that I am an employee, and yet that is what has begun to occur.
Self-censorship in this arena is pointless. A person cannot find spiritual value in something merely because they have decided to do so. True connections will arise spontaneously and without premeditation. They will arise without permission or decision.
I want to accept the value that I place in things. I want to be proud again of that which is meaningful to me and to prioritise it accordingly within the time I have available. I wish to walk in joy and love and to choose to dwell outside the spaces I nurse which contain my pain and sorrow, my anger and my dissatisfaction.
I would like to be guided by the moments of clarity when I feel like I have understood why I am here and what I can do with this opportunity. In order to accomplish this, I must trust what reveals itself as important to me, no matter the source.
Buffywatch 2014
Aug. 31st, 2014 04:28 pmAfter what feels like 40,000 fandom years of hearing about Hush but never having seen it, I finally got to S4 E10 today. Nobody mentioned it being this creepy! Usually the villains on BtVS are what one might call charmingly retro (given that I'm watching it 15 years late) or, possibly more accurately, totally naff. By which I mean, most things are human-shaped or truly terribly CG. The floaty guys in this, though, are quite effective, if let down a little by their walking/flailing companians (if both of your arms are untied in a straitjacket, why are you still wearing said straitjacket?)
it is what it is, till it ain't anymore
Jul. 22nd, 2014 10:59 pmIf you’re wondering, if anyone you know has ever gone through this and you haven’t, yourself, and you’ve wondered what it was like: being depressed is a fucking boring waste of time.
Your thoughts are stuck on about three settings: I am and have always been a failure; nothing good will ever come of anything I do; I will be alone like this forever. You’d think there was some real juice in these thoughts: this is the stuff of high drama! This is poetry and music and pain! No. Because although you are genuinely thinking all these things, if you edge too far towards feeling sorry for yourself, you loop right back around to ‘I’m a failure’, because you know in your head there’s no reason for you to be feeling this bad. You’re only feeling this bad because you’re a loser. You don’t deserve the poetry. You don’t get the creative destruction part of melancholy. You just get the part where you don’t want to get out of bed.
All of your spare time is taken up with dwelling on things, attempting not to avoid the things you normally enjoy, inventing displacement activities to prevent yourself from dwelling on things or from having to attend normal functions with friends and acquaintances who might recognise that something is off. NOTHING USEFUL IS ACCOMPLISHED. Your short- and medium-term memories fail you entirely. You are permanently exhausted. You exist in a state of high irritation. You are on the verge of tears constantly but cannot cry.
Conversations with people fall into two camps. Specifically, navigating the twin evils of small talk: ‘how are you?’ and ‘what have you been up to lately?’ If you don’t know someone that well, forced jollity is the only acceptable answer to the first question, and self-deprecation or sheer invention will have to do for the second. If you do know someone, you have to remind yourself of who you’re talking to and the context you’re in: their day at work might veer rather seriously off course if you come back to their tossed-off ‘how’s it going?’ when you meet outside the office bathroom with a ‘I feel like I’m drowning but I can’t see the water’.
I know I'm headed for something right now but I'm damned if I am not sick to the eye teeth of being back here.
At work, I am a Mental Health First Aider. It is one of my responsibilities to respond to other people's distress. If you come to me, troubled, and tell me how you are doing, I have been trained to acknowledge your experience and can signpost you to appropriate help. (I will probably also diagnose you in an amateurish way in my head for my own interest, but that is very definitely not part of the job description.) I can use what I know from first- and second-hand experience to help other people. I am seemingly incapable of preventing myself from circling this particular drain for the umpteenth time.
Your thoughts are stuck on about three settings: I am and have always been a failure; nothing good will ever come of anything I do; I will be alone like this forever. You’d think there was some real juice in these thoughts: this is the stuff of high drama! This is poetry and music and pain! No. Because although you are genuinely thinking all these things, if you edge too far towards feeling sorry for yourself, you loop right back around to ‘I’m a failure’, because you know in your head there’s no reason for you to be feeling this bad. You’re only feeling this bad because you’re a loser. You don’t deserve the poetry. You don’t get the creative destruction part of melancholy. You just get the part where you don’t want to get out of bed.
All of your spare time is taken up with dwelling on things, attempting not to avoid the things you normally enjoy, inventing displacement activities to prevent yourself from dwelling on things or from having to attend normal functions with friends and acquaintances who might recognise that something is off. NOTHING USEFUL IS ACCOMPLISHED. Your short- and medium-term memories fail you entirely. You are permanently exhausted. You exist in a state of high irritation. You are on the verge of tears constantly but cannot cry.
Conversations with people fall into two camps. Specifically, navigating the twin evils of small talk: ‘how are you?’ and ‘what have you been up to lately?’ If you don’t know someone that well, forced jollity is the only acceptable answer to the first question, and self-deprecation or sheer invention will have to do for the second. If you do know someone, you have to remind yourself of who you’re talking to and the context you’re in: their day at work might veer rather seriously off course if you come back to their tossed-off ‘how’s it going?’ when you meet outside the office bathroom with a ‘I feel like I’m drowning but I can’t see the water’.
I know I'm headed for something right now but I'm damned if I am not sick to the eye teeth of being back here.
At work, I am a Mental Health First Aider. It is one of my responsibilities to respond to other people's distress. If you come to me, troubled, and tell me how you are doing, I have been trained to acknowledge your experience and can signpost you to appropriate help. (I will probably also diagnose you in an amateurish way in my head for my own interest, but that is very definitely not part of the job description.) I can use what I know from first- and second-hand experience to help other people. I am seemingly incapable of preventing myself from circling this particular drain for the umpteenth time.
Thirty before thirty
Oct. 17th, 2013 12:47 amSeventeen days ago I turned twenty-nine years of age, and about five days later I pulled my head out of its funk and decided to get back on board the happy train that I had, up until that point, been riding since I moved here at the end of June.
Jo came to stay on Monday and left today and last night we made merry with my birthday wine and made some lists: me, thirty things to do before I turn thirty (only 11.5 months to go!) and she... the next list. I've already started that one too but I figure I should focus on the one with the looming deadline first!
( and thus... )
Jo came to stay on Monday and left today and last night we made merry with my birthday wine and made some lists: me, thirty things to do before I turn thirty (only 11.5 months to go!) and she... the next list. I've already started that one too but I figure I should focus on the one with the looming deadline first!
( and thus... )
a little self-analysis
Jan. 14th, 2013 01:30 amThere is now a tv spreadsheet to go along with this. I am sure I am missing some current shows.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
wouldn't all of you kill to be me
Jan. 12th, 2013 06:53 amWELCOME TO DW, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dudski!
I've been away a long time, sorry internet! Also, hi there 2013: apologies that I'm still stalling on that whole resolution jag.
I deleted my Facebook account and locked down my tweets and stopped saying anything here all for one reason: I was going for a really cool, sensitive government job, and although trying to erase my 12-year internet history would be completely impossible, I thought I would dial it down for the duration of the application process. I got through eight rounds of selection, including an interview at HQ, before getting a conditional offer and then being told they couldn't security-clear me for the job. [Best part: they don't have to tell you why! I had to list all of my extended family on my application form (and we're Irish Catholic) so I'm going to assume one of that mad lot is up to something dodge, since by this stage in the proceedings there was very little they didn't already know about me.] That whole process was my major accomplishment of 2012, and it all came to naught. I didn't miss Facebook so I've never gone back, but I unlocked my Twitter again so I can tweet at companies when they are annoying me, and now thatdudski's arrival has prompted me to log back in to Dee-Dub, I guess I can start to journal again too.
Helen and I went to New York City for Christmas and New Year. Despite the fact that I went down with a virus on day three [sidebar: ten days after returning, I still have a hacking cough], we had a great/exhausting/appropriately festive time, and I got to meet Mandi, who I met on the DC boards approximately one thousand years ago and is the last of the old guard I'm still regularly in touch with that I hadn't met yet. (I think? Am I missing anyone??)
Before we went away I got into one of my biannual funks, and decided to watch Bones on the US version of Netflix. I got through all aired episodes (like seven regular seasons's worth of eps, given a truncated S7 and being part way through S8 in the US right now) in less than a month, helped by the fact that our Williamsburg apartment had a Roku instead of a cable box. I have an undisputed television addiction at the best of times, but when it coincides with me withdrawing from the world a little, a lot of sleep-deprivation occurs. I will be talking more about Bones when I've got my thoughts in order, because more needs to be said, about episodes 426, 516, 622-23 and 701 in particular but also S7 and 8 in general. Anyone familiar with the show will know why, but I'mma wait for Mandi to catch up and agree with me.
I'm not allowed to talk about this on Twitter, because my mother hasn't told the boys yet, but we had to say goodbye to our beloved Missy on Thursday night. I wasn't here when Alex was put to sleep: he got ill very quickly and I didn't get back from Edinburgh in time to see him. Missy has been ill for a long time now and with the cold weather approaching we had been more and more concerned about her being out in the cold and/or rain all day as she had been forgetting or not thinking to go to her bed in the garage and we would routinely get home to a soaked-through pet. We adopted them 10 years ago this Christmas, so she would have been coming up to 18 years old this year, which is a very respectable age for a dog. I came home early from work so we could hang out in the afternoon, and I went with her to the vets, but it was still much harder than I anticipated, and I'm avoiding the kitchen until I can handle seeing it without her bed where it has been for a decade. Losing Alex was very hard for all of us, but we still had Missy so a lot of our affection and love was channelled towards her in his absence: we just loved her harder after we lost him. Saying goodbye to her sort of reopened the floodgates for my sadness at losing Alex too, so it feels like a double mourning. I think it will be a long time before any of us would consider adopting a new furry family member.
dudski!I've been away a long time, sorry internet! Also, hi there 2013: apologies that I'm still stalling on that whole resolution jag.
I deleted my Facebook account and locked down my tweets and stopped saying anything here all for one reason: I was going for a really cool, sensitive government job, and although trying to erase my 12-year internet history would be completely impossible, I thought I would dial it down for the duration of the application process. I got through eight rounds of selection, including an interview at HQ, before getting a conditional offer and then being told they couldn't security-clear me for the job. [Best part: they don't have to tell you why! I had to list all of my extended family on my application form (and we're Irish Catholic) so I'm going to assume one of that mad lot is up to something dodge, since by this stage in the proceedings there was very little they didn't already know about me.] That whole process was my major accomplishment of 2012, and it all came to naught. I didn't miss Facebook so I've never gone back, but I unlocked my Twitter again so I can tweet at companies when they are annoying me, and now that
dudski's arrival has prompted me to log back in to Dee-Dub, I guess I can start to journal again too.Helen and I went to New York City for Christmas and New Year. Despite the fact that I went down with a virus on day three [sidebar: ten days after returning, I still have a hacking cough], we had a great/exhausting/appropriately festive time, and I got to meet Mandi, who I met on the DC boards approximately one thousand years ago and is the last of the old guard I'm still regularly in touch with that I hadn't met yet. (I think? Am I missing anyone??)
Before we went away I got into one of my biannual funks, and decided to watch Bones on the US version of Netflix. I got through all aired episodes (like seven regular seasons's worth of eps, given a truncated S7 and being part way through S8 in the US right now) in less than a month, helped by the fact that our Williamsburg apartment had a Roku instead of a cable box. I have an undisputed television addiction at the best of times, but when it coincides with me withdrawing from the world a little, a lot of sleep-deprivation occurs. I will be talking more about Bones when I've got my thoughts in order, because more needs to be said, about episodes 426, 516, 622-23 and 701 in particular but also S7 and 8 in general. Anyone familiar with the show will know why, but I'mma wait for Mandi to catch up and agree with me.
I'm not allowed to talk about this on Twitter, because my mother hasn't told the boys yet, but we had to say goodbye to our beloved Missy on Thursday night. I wasn't here when Alex was put to sleep: he got ill very quickly and I didn't get back from Edinburgh in time to see him. Missy has been ill for a long time now and with the cold weather approaching we had been more and more concerned about her being out in the cold and/or rain all day as she had been forgetting or not thinking to go to her bed in the garage and we would routinely get home to a soaked-through pet. We adopted them 10 years ago this Christmas, so she would have been coming up to 18 years old this year, which is a very respectable age for a dog. I came home early from work so we could hang out in the afternoon, and I went with her to the vets, but it was still much harder than I anticipated, and I'm avoiding the kitchen until I can handle seeing it without her bed where it has been for a decade. Losing Alex was very hard for all of us, but we still had Missy so a lot of our affection and love was channelled towards her in his absence: we just loved her harder after we lost him. Saying goodbye to her sort of reopened the floodgates for my sadness at losing Alex too, so it feels like a double mourning. I think it will be a long time before any of us would consider adopting a new furry family member.
Poetry Saturday
Apr. 8th, 2012 12:44 amThis is becoming a poetry-only journal! Must change that. Maybe Monday will be a day of writing: got no plans and the day off work due to Easter.
Sonnets Uncorseted by Maxine W. Kumin
1
She was twenty-two. He was fifty-three,
a duke, a widower with ten children.
They met in Paris, each in exile from
the English Civil War. Virginal
and terrified, still she agreed
to marry him. Though women were mere chattel
spinsterhood made you invisible
in the sixteen hundreds. Marriage was arranged
—hers a rare exception. Despite a dowry
a woman never could own property.
Your womb was just for rent. Birth control
contrivances—a paste of ants, cow dung
mashed with honey, tree bark with pennyroyal—
all too often failed the applicant.
( Read more... )
Sonnets Uncorseted by Maxine W. Kumin
1
She was twenty-two. He was fifty-three,
a duke, a widower with ten children.
They met in Paris, each in exile from
the English Civil War. Virginal
and terrified, still she agreed
to marry him. Though women were mere chattel
spinsterhood made you invisible
in the sixteen hundreds. Marriage was arranged
—hers a rare exception. Despite a dowry
a woman never could own property.
Your womb was just for rent. Birth control
contrivances—a paste of ants, cow dung
mashed with honey, tree bark with pennyroyal—
all too often failed the applicant.
( Read more... )
Poetry Saturday
Apr. 1st, 2012 01:39 amI missed last week because I was away in the Shropshire countryside mangling Breton and Irish songs with my inexpert tongue. You'd think I'd be able to do better, with a name like mine. I had a short poem lined up for this week, but then came the very sad news that Adrienne Rich had died, so Tom McGrath will have to wait. I read some of Rich's work during Autostraddle's Pure Poetry week and then didn't pursue it further, but I must, I really must. Everything I've come across has been excellent.
Splittings by Adrienne Rich
1.
My body opens over San Francisco like the day-
light raining down each pore crying the change of light
I am not with her I have been waking off and on
all night to that pain not simply absence but
the presence of the past destructive
to living here and now Yet if I could instruct
myself, if we could learn to learn from pain
even as it grasps us if the mind, the mind that lives
in this body could refuse to let itself be crushed
in that grasp it would loosen Pain would have to stand
off from me and listen its dark breath still on me
but the mind could begin to speak to pain
and pain would have to answer:
We are older now
we have met before these are my hands before your eyes
my figure blotting out all that is not mine
I am the pain of division creator of divisions
it is I who blot your lover from you
and not the time-zones nor the miles
It is not separation calls me forth but I
who am separation And remember
I have no existence apart from you
2.
I believe I am choosing something new
not to suffer uselessly yet still to feel
Does the infant memorize the body of the mother
and create her in absence? or simply cry
primordial loneliness? does the bed of the stream
once diverted mourning remember wetness?
But we, we live so much in these
configurations of the past I choose
to separate her from my past we have not shared
I choose not to suffer uselessly
to detect primordial pain as it stalks toward me
flashing its bleak torch in my eyes blotting out
her particular being the details of her love
I will not be divided from her or from myself
by myths of separation
while her mind and body in Manhattan are more with me
than the smell of eucalyptus coolly burning on these hills
3.
The world tells me I am its creature
I am raked by eyes brushed by hands
I want to crawl into her for refuge lay my head
in the space between her breast and shoulder
abnegating power for love
as women have done or hiding
from power in her love like a man
I refuse these givens the splitting
between love and action I am choosing
not to suffer uselessly and not to use her
I choose to love this time for once
with all my intelligence
1974
Splittings by Adrienne Rich
1.
My body opens over San Francisco like the day-
light raining down each pore crying the change of light
I am not with her I have been waking off and on
all night to that pain not simply absence but
the presence of the past destructive
to living here and now Yet if I could instruct
myself, if we could learn to learn from pain
even as it grasps us if the mind, the mind that lives
in this body could refuse to let itself be crushed
in that grasp it would loosen Pain would have to stand
off from me and listen its dark breath still on me
but the mind could begin to speak to pain
and pain would have to answer:
We are older now
we have met before these are my hands before your eyes
my figure blotting out all that is not mine
I am the pain of division creator of divisions
it is I who blot your lover from you
and not the time-zones nor the miles
It is not separation calls me forth but I
who am separation And remember
I have no existence apart from you
2.
I believe I am choosing something new
not to suffer uselessly yet still to feel
Does the infant memorize the body of the mother
and create her in absence? or simply cry
primordial loneliness? does the bed of the stream
once diverted mourning remember wetness?
But we, we live so much in these
configurations of the past I choose
to separate her from my past we have not shared
I choose not to suffer uselessly
to detect primordial pain as it stalks toward me
flashing its bleak torch in my eyes blotting out
her particular being the details of her love
I will not be divided from her or from myself
by myths of separation
while her mind and body in Manhattan are more with me
than the smell of eucalyptus coolly burning on these hills
3.
The world tells me I am its creature
I am raked by eyes brushed by hands
I want to crawl into her for refuge lay my head
in the space between her breast and shoulder
abnegating power for love
as women have done or hiding
from power in her love like a man
I refuse these givens the splitting
between love and action I am choosing
not to suffer uselessly and not to use her
I choose to love this time for once
with all my intelligence
1974
Poetry Saturday
Mar. 17th, 2012 03:13 amUntitled by Marilyn Hacker
via the Autostraddle Tumblr
You did say, need me less and I'll want you more.
I'm still shellshocked at needing anyone,
used to being used to it on my own.
It won't be me out on the tiles till four-
thirty, while you're in bed, willing the door
open with your need. You wanted her then,
more. Because you need to, I woke alone
in what's not yet our room, strewn, though, with your
guitar, shoes, notebook, socks, trousers enjambed
with mine. Half the world was sleeping it off
in every other bed under my roof.
I wish I had a roof over my bed
to pull down on my head when I feel damned
by wanting you so much it looks like need.
( Continued... )
Posting this early because I missed last week. I had a minor meltdown recently over all this Love Stuff (tm) and I'm almost ready to talk about, but I should probably sleep right now. Temp job starts Monday! No longer a benefits scrounger, how proud am I.
via the Autostraddle Tumblr
You did say, need me less and I'll want you more.
I'm still shellshocked at needing anyone,
used to being used to it on my own.
It won't be me out on the tiles till four-
thirty, while you're in bed, willing the door
open with your need. You wanted her then,
more. Because you need to, I woke alone
in what's not yet our room, strewn, though, with your
guitar, shoes, notebook, socks, trousers enjambed
with mine. Half the world was sleeping it off
in every other bed under my roof.
I wish I had a roof over my bed
to pull down on my head when I feel damned
by wanting you so much it looks like need.
( Continued... )
Posting this early because I missed last week. I had a minor meltdown recently over all this Love Stuff (tm) and I'm almost ready to talk about, but I should probably sleep right now. Temp job starts Monday! No longer a benefits scrounger, how proud am I.
Poetry Saturday
Mar. 3rd, 2012 07:10 pmRelativity by Heather Kamins
Somewhere on a train, a woman weighs
the difference between love and propaganda.
The trees go and go, and small brick buildings
that used to mean one thing and now
mean something else. The backs of factories
flash past like things she used to know, like reminders
to herself: get milk, or, remember that time
is passing. These days on the train, all you can get
is a stale sandwich, all you can get is somewhere
but not anywhere. These days the station is a cold shell
of steel, and all the clocks are digital. All the romance
is gone except for the going, and going, and going.
I'm a member of LibraryThing, although I only remember to use it sporadically and I should really sit down one of these days and thoroughly go through my online and offline libraries to make sure that they tally, but one of its great features is the ability to sign up and be a preview reader for new books. This is how I received an ecopy of Heather Kamins's new chapbook, from whence this poem was taken. I'll be reviewing it when I've finished reading and digesting.
I'm also in the middle of the Love: Part 2 post, but I've been in the middle of it for a while. I'm untangling how I'm feeling about being suddenly and without much warning defriended by my ex on Facebook, and also how I'm feeling about the fact that I'm currently dating two people at once. Both of these situations are new to me, and I need to ponder a bit more on them, I think, before I can commit any sort of analysis to journal. Watch this space.
Somewhere on a train, a woman weighs
the difference between love and propaganda.
The trees go and go, and small brick buildings
that used to mean one thing and now
mean something else. The backs of factories
flash past like things she used to know, like reminders
to herself: get milk, or, remember that time
is passing. These days on the train, all you can get
is a stale sandwich, all you can get is somewhere
but not anywhere. These days the station is a cold shell
of steel, and all the clocks are digital. All the romance
is gone except for the going, and going, and going.
I'm a member of LibraryThing, although I only remember to use it sporadically and I should really sit down one of these days and thoroughly go through my online and offline libraries to make sure that they tally, but one of its great features is the ability to sign up and be a preview reader for new books. This is how I received an ecopy of Heather Kamins's new chapbook, from whence this poem was taken. I'll be reviewing it when I've finished reading and digesting.
I'm also in the middle of the Love: Part 2 post, but I've been in the middle of it for a while. I'm untangling how I'm feeling about being suddenly and without much warning defriended by my ex on Facebook, and also how I'm feeling about the fact that I'm currently dating two people at once. Both of these situations are new to me, and I need to ponder a bit more on them, I think, before I can commit any sort of analysis to journal. Watch this space.
Poetry Saturday
Feb. 26th, 2012 01:23 amRomantics by Lisel Mueller
From the Poetry Foundation website
Johannes Brahms and
Clara Schumann
The modern biographers worry
"how far it went," their tender friendship.
They wonder just what it means
when he writes he thinks of her constantly,
his guardian angel, beloved friend.
The modern biographers ask
the rude, irrelevant question
of our age, as if the event
of two bodies meshing together
establishes the degree of love,
forgetting how softly Eros walked
in the nineteenth-century, how a hand
held overlong or a gaze anchored
in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart,
and nuances of address not known
in our egalitarian language
could make the redolent air
tremble and shimmer with the heat
of possibility. Each time I hear
the Intermezzi, sad
and lavish in their tenderness,
I imagine the two of them
sitting in a garden
among late-blooming roses
and dark cascades of leaves,
letting the landscape speak for them,
leaving us nothing to overhear.
From the Poetry Foundation website
Johannes Brahms and
Clara Schumann
The modern biographers worry
"how far it went," their tender friendship.
They wonder just what it means
when he writes he thinks of her constantly,
his guardian angel, beloved friend.
The modern biographers ask
the rude, irrelevant question
of our age, as if the event
of two bodies meshing together
establishes the degree of love,
forgetting how softly Eros walked
in the nineteenth-century, how a hand
held overlong or a gaze anchored
in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart,
and nuances of address not known
in our egalitarian language
could make the redolent air
tremble and shimmer with the heat
of possibility. Each time I hear
the Intermezzi, sad
and lavish in their tenderness,
I imagine the two of them
sitting in a garden
among late-blooming roses
and dark cascades of leaves,
letting the landscape speak for them,
leaving us nothing to overhear.
Poetry Saturday
Feb. 18th, 2012 07:58 pmPeanut Butter by Eileen Myles
From the Poetry Foundation website
I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
( you know. And )
From the Poetry Foundation website
I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
( you know. And )
I'VE JUST GOT SO MANY FEELINGS.
*shimmies on the spot*
OKAY SO. Let's discuss. [Not-so-brief aside: I ummed and ahhed whenever DW launched about buying a seed account - I really wasn't sure I'd ever use it to the extent required to make the payment worth it, so it became more about permanence and supporting an amazing venture - but I'm so glad I did because even now, when I journal sporadically and will no doubt in the future go through periods of not-updating more than updating, my first instinct when I have something to work out in my head is to blog it. Facebook barely gets updated any more (I can never figure out who my audience there is meant to be), I tweet mostly about inanity or to my closest friends, and G+/Diaspora haven't made enough of an impact for me to even think about them. DW is still where it's at, where I do all of my untangling, and though going through and editing my old LJ entries and tidying the thing up is taking a long time and is bringing me into uncomfortably close contact with the thoughts and inconsistencies of my former self, I'm so glad I have it as an archive, not just because my memory is terrible but also as a record of how I grew and changed (...when I bothered to update).]
I've been musing for several days on Love: that big weighty topic, so denoted by the capital letter, rather than any personal reflection on it, you understand. I don't know what kicked this off in my head, but I'd be most inclined to think it's been bubbling away in there since before New Year. I went to a wedding on NYE (celebration of love), NYE itself is very tied up in my head with having someone to kiss (going to blame that on The O.C., but again: love-related), January meant resolutions and finding my past ones used to include as item one - "Get a boyfriend", pre-bisexual self-revelations (past obsession with finding of love), re-registering on a couple of dating sites (unimpressive solutions to current finding of love), continual re-listening to of Les Mis since it was on tv (plot involving love triangle/unfulfilled and -requited love vs. charming though maybe slightly OTT expression of love as indicated in the subject line), and lastly, I just saw J. Edgar, which has the most affecting storyline involving lifelong yet unconsummated love that I have seen in a very long time. Eternal unfulfilled love is a big button of mine, and this movie basically sat on it for two hours. I'm not going to divulge any more details of the film so no spoiler warnings should be necessary.
..........................................................................
This post was arrested for a whole bunch of days (almost a month, in fact) because the thing I wanted to mention next was something Elizabeth Bennet says in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, so then I went to find the quote in the book only to find that it doesn't exist (!!!), and nor does any YouTube clip of the scene with her and Jane in the bedroom chatting about Bingley and boys in general (!!!) so I'm not even sure I have the wording right without going to the garage and searching through my boxes (I moved back in with my parents recently so everything of mine is still kind of in storage) to find the VHS.
SO.
Now Valentine's Day has been and gone and I know I had some sort of thread of logical thought I was pursuing with this whole post, but at this juncture I can't for the life of me remember what it was, so I'm just going to throw this up and we can all assume this is Part One of [More Than One].
If you are interested, I THINK the quote in question is: "I am determined that nothing but the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony."
Who really knows where I was going from there - was probably going to agree, let's face it - but let's hope posting half of this thought process triggers the rest of it to begin again. I'm really almost sure I had a point. *searches in vain*
*shimmies on the spot*
OKAY SO. Let's discuss. [Not-so-brief aside: I ummed and ahhed whenever DW launched about buying a seed account - I really wasn't sure I'd ever use it to the extent required to make the payment worth it, so it became more about permanence and supporting an amazing venture - but I'm so glad I did because even now, when I journal sporadically and will no doubt in the future go through periods of not-updating more than updating, my first instinct when I have something to work out in my head is to blog it. Facebook barely gets updated any more (I can never figure out who my audience there is meant to be), I tweet mostly about inanity or to my closest friends, and G+/Diaspora haven't made enough of an impact for me to even think about them. DW is still where it's at, where I do all of my untangling, and though going through and editing my old LJ entries and tidying the thing up is taking a long time and is bringing me into uncomfortably close contact with the thoughts and inconsistencies of my former self, I'm so glad I have it as an archive, not just because my memory is terrible but also as a record of how I grew and changed (...when I bothered to update).]
I've been musing for several days on Love: that big weighty topic, so denoted by the capital letter, rather than any personal reflection on it, you understand. I don't know what kicked this off in my head, but I'd be most inclined to think it's been bubbling away in there since before New Year. I went to a wedding on NYE (celebration of love), NYE itself is very tied up in my head with having someone to kiss (going to blame that on The O.C., but again: love-related), January meant resolutions and finding my past ones used to include as item one - "Get a boyfriend", pre-bisexual self-revelations (past obsession with finding of love), re-registering on a couple of dating sites (unimpressive solutions to current finding of love), continual re-listening to of Les Mis since it was on tv (plot involving love triangle/unfulfilled and -requited love vs. charming though maybe slightly OTT expression of love as indicated in the subject line), and lastly, I just saw J. Edgar, which has the most affecting storyline involving lifelong yet unconsummated love that I have seen in a very long time. Eternal unfulfilled love is a big button of mine, and this movie basically sat on it for two hours. I'm not going to divulge any more details of the film so no spoiler warnings should be necessary.
..........................................................................
This post was arrested for a whole bunch of days (almost a month, in fact) because the thing I wanted to mention next was something Elizabeth Bennet says in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, so then I went to find the quote in the book only to find that it doesn't exist (!!!), and nor does any YouTube clip of the scene with her and Jane in the bedroom chatting about Bingley and boys in general (!!!) so I'm not even sure I have the wording right without going to the garage and searching through my boxes (I moved back in with my parents recently so everything of mine is still kind of in storage) to find the VHS.
SO.
Now Valentine's Day has been and gone and I know I had some sort of thread of logical thought I was pursuing with this whole post, but at this juncture I can't for the life of me remember what it was, so I'm just going to throw this up and we can all assume this is Part One of [More Than One].
If you are interested, I THINK the quote in question is: "I am determined that nothing but the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony."
Who really knows where I was going from there - was probably going to agree, let's face it - but let's hope posting half of this thought process triggers the rest of it to begin again. I'm really almost sure I had a point. *searches in vain*
Poetry Saturday
Feb. 12th, 2012 01:56 amIf I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way - Edna St Vincent Millay
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
Widening my reading circle on DW
Feb. 6th, 2012 08:28 pmI've been links-hopping and network-page-ing and looking up linked interests today and have added a bunch of people as a result. If you are one of those people, hello! No expectation that you will add me back (though of course you are welcome to); I just enjoy reading other people's takes on the tv/other pop cultural things that I enjoy.
Carry on with your days. :)
Carry on with your days. :)
I've got this friend
Feb. 6th, 2012 02:52 pmAccent Meme on Tumblr! Wherein I sound terribly English and mangle a lot of French.
